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GuardiaN chimes in on Major qualifier debate

One of the highest profile players in professional Counter-Strike has chimed in on the debate about Major qualifiers.

Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovacs is one of the longest-tenured members of Natus Vincere, which has consistently been one of the best teams in the world. In an interview last week, he gave his opinion on the current state of Major qualifiers.

Six of the 10 teams in HLTV’s world rankings will have to qualify for the ELEAGUE Major in January. Likewise, teams ranked as low as 20th (Gambit) have earned automatic invites to the event for finishing at the top eight at ESL Cologne, the previous Major, in July.

“I wouldn’t change anything,” GuardiaN told Slingshot. “I think you have a lot of chances to qualify. To say six of the top 10 teams are in the qualifiers, it means they failed and not the system failed. I would say it’s their fault for not making the top eight of the (previous) major. I’m quite fine with the online qualifiers and stuff.”

Dignitas (third in HLTV’s rankings), Cloud9 (fifth), G2 (sixth), Ninjas in Pyjamas (seventh), mousesports (eighth) and EnVyUs (ninth) all must qualify for the Major. Natus Vincere is ranked fourth in the world and made a quarterfinal exit at ESL One Cologne to qualify for an automatic invite.

Teams that fail to make it out of their group in the previous Major automatically qualify for the main qualifier for the next Major, along with eight teams that got there through regional qualifiers (a good breakdown is here).